


Prisonic Fairytale (In Monochrome Night)

by SinpaiCasanova (Bladerunnerblue)



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Altered Mental States, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Forbidden Love, Forced Bonding, Gaslighting, Hydra Steve Rogers, Joseph Kidman's conscious, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not Canon Compliant, Omega Bucky Barnes, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Secret Relationship, Self-Harm, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Suicide Attempt, Verbal Abuse, Violence, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2020-12-14 21:03:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21022229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bladerunnerblue/pseuds/SinpaiCasanova
Summary: "Hey, we were fortunate that Russian oil team found him before anyone else; otherwise, Cap might be in Fury's hands instead of ours." Rumlow's voice dropped an octave as he leaned closer, growling out his warning. Kidman immediately has to stop himself from reeling back when the alpha's breath hit the shell of his ear. "Hydra's been after this bastard longer than you've been dreamin' about suckin' his dick. You remember that, Kid. He's here to serve a purpose in Hydra. Captain America is dead, and we're here to keep it that way. Understand?"Or; the one where Hydra, rather than SHIELD, finds a frozen Captain America off the coast of Resolution Island in 2012, with nefarious plans to make him the next Winter Soldier.Too bad that soul bond Steve and Bucky formed in the 40s keeps getting in the way of that.





	1. Prelude: Kidman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carelica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carelica/gifts).

> This story is the product of combining my two great loves: Resident Evil and the Captain America films.
> 
> No. This story will not contain zombies or any other creatures from the Resident Evil universe. But Hydra/AIM have combined forces to become the Umbrella Corporation nobody ever wanted.
> 
> The title is taken from two songs from Silent Hill: Prisonic Fairytale and Breeze in Monochrome Night, both of which helped aid in the creation of this fic.
> 
> This story begins with a POV from an original character, Joseph Kidman. (Yes, he's an amalgamation of Joseph Oda and Juli Kidman from The Evil Within) but it's more for background purposes on who and what Hydra is until the second chapter, where it shifts to Steve.
> 
> Please bear with me if there are any mistakes, and I implore you to take a chance on this if you feel so inclined.
> 
> This story is my baby, so I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading.  
As always, comments are appreciated beyond words.❤
> 
> Happy reading!

"Seventy years of searching for this asshole and the damn transport is late again." Grumbled Rollins, lazily resting his ass on top of the inelegant metal coffin that currently housed the purpose of their mission here off the coast of Killiniq. He'd taken to bitching for a lack of anything better to do, and Rumlow–who notoriously has the patience of a sleep-deprived mother of ten– quite frankly, was done hearkening to it. 

It was bad enough that he'd been stuck training some SWAT team reject Mayor Watson had a hard-on for, but hearing Rollins' mouth run on a constant stream of griping and moaning for the three minutes their chopper was running behind was a bit too much, even for him.

Rumlow just shook his head, exasperated as he checked his wristwatch.

Sure enough, their delayed extraction was pushing close to five minutes now, which may not seem to be that big of a deal, but when they'd been tasked with transporting a treasure of this magnitude, every second they're behind the clock is a second when disaster could choose to strike.

On top of all that, Secretary Pierce denied his request to bring The Asset along for extra security, so he was basically working with two STRIKE agents who were just competent enough to keep themselves alive–Rollins and Mason, a junior STRIKE agent on the tail end of his one year probation–Larkin, and Kidman, a doe-eyed, baby-faced cop who was pulled straight off of desk duty from the NYPD's task force just a little over a month ago.

This was excessively perilous, even for an organization as foolhardy and impulsive as Hydra. Then again, Rumlow knew the shit he'd be in for when he'd sold his soul to the Devil just after receiving a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps, so taking a page out of Rollins' book wasn't going to do anyone any good, even if it would make him feel a little better in the end.

Still, he couldn't help but let some of Rollins' indignation affect him. Hell, it was practically rolling off of the Beta in waves, which was only causing Rumlow's agitation to spike in turn, putting the others on edge. Especially Kidman.

The Omega was picking at the underside of his nails with the tip of his field knife, failing to convey an air of ennui while Mason–the only other STRIKE agent besides Rollins with any real field experience– worked on an ETA for the approaching chopper.

Most of STRIKE was comprised of Betas, with a lead Alpha to keep the hierarchy in check. Kidman's presence as an Omega was a bit unorthodox, but not completely unheard of.

Shit, the Asset himself was an Omega, and he has more confirmed kills under his belt than even Rumlow, which was saying something when the Alpha has a reputation for maximum casualties.

It's clear that Rumlow pulls the trigger for pleasure first and duty after, but Hydra turns a blind eye to most of his infractions because he's the only handler the Asset hasn't challenged in his seven-decade captivity.

There's just something about the Alpha commander that demands absolute compliance, and even Hydra's deadliest weapon appeared to be no match for the likes of him.

Needless to say, the commendation from Pierce went straight to his head.

Rumlow leaves Rollins to his grievances with a perturbed growl, coming to stand next to where Kidman is stiffly leaning against the trunk of a tree. 

It's hard to make out the expression on the Omega's face when it's smeared with camo paint, but the line of tension Rumlow noticed in his shoulders was more the cause of emotional unrest than it was from the frigid mid-November temperatures they had to endure tonight.

This, of course, intrigued the Alpha, who was always drawn to the skittish ones like Kidman– even The Asset fresh after a mind wipe, when the scent of his fear was pungent and acidic in Rumlow's nose; nearly making him hard in his tactical pants. The scent coming off of Kidman was much the same, and Rumlow just couldn't help himself.

He gave a cursory sniff in the Omega's general direction, unbothered in the slightest by the egregious violation of personal boundaries.

"If you were going for apathetic, Kid, it's a near miss," Rumlow muttered, just low enough that only Kidman and himself were privy to the conversation. "I can smell the anxiety on you a mile away. So, what's got you so worked up, huh?" 

Kidman bristled under the sudden intensity of the Alpha's inquisitiveness, but chose not to give voice to how brazen he felt it was to scent someone without their consent.

Rumlow always did as he pleased without consequence, and a rookie agent like him has little to no clout in the hierarchy where it counts. But as his mother always said, _ 'it's better to be the right hand of the Devil than to be in his path, Joseph.' _ Which basically implied that he was to keep his head down and his mouth shut when it came to dealing with those in power.

His mother was a meek woman that came from a battered home, ruled over by an Alpha no different than Rumlow, where Kidman was concerned.

Rumlow is an arrogant, cruel, and sadistic man, but he's still his commanding officer while he's out on loan from the NYPD, so he'll just have to grin and bear the little injustices that come with Rumlow's company for the time being.

Kidman spared a glance back toward the rectangular pod their captive was currently sleeping in, lips pursed in incredulity.

Well, _ sleeping _ might be the wrong word for what the man in that pod was doing. Technically, he was slowly thawing out from his seventy-year deep freeze in the Arctic; raising his body temperature a degree an hour until he reached baseline. From what Mason said, the man inside was barely alive. The fact that it was Captain America, of all people, was almost too good to be true.

"Is he–" the Omega nervously licked his dry lips, giving himself a moment to quell the racing of his heart, lest Rumlow call that out as well. "Is Captain America really in there?–I mean, they're sure It's really him?"

"Jesus, Kidman," Rumlow groaned with a roll of his eyes. "Don't tell me you're a fanboy of his."

"No," he might've denied it a bit too quickly, which Rumlow undoubtedly noticed. _ Fuck. _ "It's just–we were told he'd died in '45...y'know, in that plane crash near the arctic? What the hell was he doing out by Resolution Island?"

"Fuck if I know, Kid," grunted Rumlow. "Must've drifted up there after he crashed, froze near the coast. The Island is uninhabited, so no one was really lookin' out there for a fucking downed aircraft from world war two."

Kidman shrugged, nonplussed. "It just seems like blind luck, sir. That's all I meant."

"Hey, we were fortunate that Russian oil team found him before anyone else; otherwise, Cap might be in Fury's hands instead of ours." Rumlow's voice dropped an octave as he leaned closer, growling out his warning. Kidman immediately has to stop himself from reeling back when the Alpha's breath hit the shell of his ear. "Hydra's been after this bastard longer than you've been dreamin' about suckin' his dick. You remember that, Kid. He's here to serve a purpose in Hydra. Captain America is dead, and we're here to keep it that way. Understand?"

Kidman nodded. "Yes, sir. Understood."

Rumlow's grin was a little too self-satisfied for Kidman's taste, apparently placated enough to let the subject drop, but not enough to back up out of the Omega's space as he examined him like some specimen in a jar.

Sure, Kidman was a looker; always been told as much. With his round amber eyes and a head full of golden curls, pouty lips, and a button nose. He fit well within the Omega demographic, but here, among Hydra's elite, not so much.

The Omega was lithe rather than bulky, with a sweet, rose-like scent that was clearly doing things for Rumlow–whose own scent strongly reminded Kidman of blood: a sharp, metallic, earthy thing that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. 

Here, among people like Rollins and Rumlow, Kidman stuck out like a sore thumb, and Rumlow was keen on making sure he knew that, if not just to fuck with him a little.

If Rumlow was going to say anything more on the matter, he'd never know. Mason chose that precise moment to inform the commander of their imminent extraction, and Kidman was glad for the distraction it provided, as well as the space it created between Rumlow and himself.

"Thirty seconds, Commander." The Beta announced, shouldering his M4 obediently.

"Eyes up, STRIKE." The Alpha barked in response. "Stay sharp."

The chopper descended on the coastline exactly thirty seconds later, and STRIKE was already in position when the rigging dropped for the underslung load.

The pod was secured to the cables by Kidman and Rollins while Rumlow, Mason, and Larkin stood guard. The threat of an ambush was ever-present, as were the consequences if they should fail to deliver Captain America to Hydra's main base in the Catskill Mountains.

Hydra doesn't tolerate failure. Period. 

You either execute your missions flawlessly, or you die trying.

The Asset, above all people, knew that. Which is why there existed no other above him. But once they were through molding the good Captain into their perfect little soldier, that fact may yet change.

Extraction occurred without incident and the team was flown to a secure location just outside of West Shokan, where an M35 military truck would take them the rest of the way to the main base. 

Hours trickled by like sand in an hourglass, and before long, night had given way to the dawn of a new day. Sunlight was beginning to spill out through the dense line of trees, and thankfully, the nip in the air was slightly lessened for it. Though most of the deciduous trees were bare, the evergreens of the forest were just as vibrant and gorgeous as they ever were, providing coverage from prying eyes as the truck chewed through dirt roads and man-made paths.

And at the end of such a road was something Kidman hadn't expected to see. When he'd been told of The Apiary–Hydra's main base in the US–his mind was filled with images of great structures as tall as the buildings that cluttered the New York skyline. Perhaps some impenetrable fortress or maybe even a mansion with enough security to rival that of the Pentagon. 

Instead, he was faced with a shabby wooden cabin that appeared to be held together by nothing more than spit and a prayer.

Rumlow smirked at the bewildered stare Kidman was giving the termite-infested house that sat in a clearing up the road a bit, but decided to let the Omega come to his own conclusions as the engine died and the team disembarked; Kidman following them around the back of the truck to unload their prized cargo a moment later.

A moment too late it seemed.

Rumlow gave him a sharp look that set Kidman's teeth on edge. 

"You hesitate, people die." The Alpha said gruffly, earning Kidman a sneer from Rollins in kind. "Say on my six, Kid. Wouldn't want nothin' bad happening to you, would we?"

"Yes, sir." He murmured in lieu of an apology, holstering his weapon to help unload the pod from the back of the truck.

The pod itself was light enough for them to carry, but not so much as to make it effortless. It weighed close to half a ton from the combination of metal and the man encased within, and by the time they had hauled it around the back of the cabin to the larger shed behind, Kidman and the others were panting with exertion; damp with sweat and muscles sharply aching.

"Goddamn piece of shit!" Rollins hissed as the pod was lowered onto the dirt-covered floorboards of the shed, giving the side of the pod a good kick. "Five years of being Hydra's whipping boy, and what am I out here doing? Draggin' your heavy ass through the dirt in the middle of the fuckin woods-"

"Hey!" Rumlow snapped when Rollins gave the pod a few more kicks for good measure, nearly denting the side where his boot made contact. "You so much as put a scratch on that thing and I'll tear your ass a new one. You got me?!"

Rumlow had him by the lapels of his Kevlar vest the instant Rollins growled in objection, pressing his lower back up against the worn and splintered edge of a workbench shoved against the far end of the wall.

Rollins fixed the commander with a challenging glare, but relented a moment later when Mason switched off the safety on the 9mm. The gun was still holstered to its place on his left thigh, but the silent warning was there regardless: _"If you so much as sniff the wrong way, I won't hesitate to paint the walls with the inside of your skull." _

Rollins swallowed thickly, but otherwise didn't move a muscle. Message received.

Mason was rather stoic at times, all business and no play type of guy that valued loyalty to the cause first and his brothers in arms second. He was a dark-skinned Beta with a body carved from stone and the temper of an Alpha. Even Rumlow wouldn't purposefully antagonize him.

"Say it, you little shit!"

"I got it," Rollins sneered. _ "Sir." _

Rumlow ran his tongue across his teeth, lingering on his sharpened canines as he looked Rollins up and down, perhaps hoping he'd step up to the challenge and engage him in combat.

To his displeasure, Rollins didn't take the bait and Rumlow reluctantly backed down with a low snarl that made Kidman's hackles raise. 

Rumlow would just have to find another outlet for his pent-up aggression, and something instinctual within the Omega told him that he might be it.

"STRIKE, " the commander addressed, his voice like the crack of a whip on Kidman's spine. "Move out."

Kidman hesitated at the command, unsure where exactly they would go from here.

The team was tucked into the back corner of a battered old wooden shed that had been abandoned since the late nineties; if the calendar on the dusty pegboard to his right told him anything of value.

The shed itself was more like a small barn than anything, sufficient in its space to house a plane for something innocuous like crop dusting, which made the fact that there was virtually nothing in here besides a tractor rusting away from disuse rather strange.

Tools and various farming instruments lined the walls, along with jars of canned peaches and other assorted fruits and vegetables collecting dust on hand-made shelves in the corner.

There was nowhere to go but back out through the front entrance, so where were they expected to go?

"Sir?" Kidman questioned, perplexed. 

"No sudden movements, Kid." Rumlow grinned at the deepening crease on Kidman's brow.

"What?"

"I said, don't move."

Just then, the floor beneath their boots began to steadily descend into a rectangular opening in the ground. Startled, Kidman's eyes snapped to the open panel in the wall by the pegboard; now sliding closed to protect Hydra's secrets.

Belatedly, Kidman realized that they were, in fact, standing on a platform that was slowly plunging two hundred feet below the surface where an honest to God _ train _ was waiting for them. 

He didn't even think to look for hidden seams in the floor, or to wonder which wall fixture was concealing the retinal scanner in the false wooden siding. 

Even if he had, the layer of dirt and hay that covered the floorboards had effectively obscured anything suspicious. 

Once the platform came to a complete stop, the pod was carried and–per Rumlow's explicit instruction–carefully loaded into the passenger car of the sleek-looking train; firmly secured to the steel floor with ratchet straps.

The little viewing box on the top of the pod was still partially obscured by frost, but as the internal temperature slowly rose, Kidman could now discern a flash of blond hair and even the ghostly pale skin of Cap's forehead from within.

It's strange to think that the man he's only ever known as a living legend will ultimately end up undone by the very people he'd fought to the death against.

He's none the wiser to it. Unaware that he's currently in Hydra's custody, traveling 150mph on an underground train, heading straight to a top-secret enemy base 2.5km under the earth's surface, and there isn't a damn thing he can do to stop it.

Kidman was acutely aware of his empathy toward Cap's situation, as well as Rumlow's hawk-like stare that continuously tracked the microscopic changes in his expression, as well as the emotional fluctuations in his scent.

It's almost like he's waiting for Kidman to inadvertently give himself away as a spy for Fury. Though, he'd be hard-pressed to find anything of note.

The train stopped at the platform less than ten minutes after its departure from the surface, and Kidman's eyes widened as he stepped out and took in the layout of the enormous railway station.

An additional train was resting parallel to their own, and the sheer size of the payload within the opened cargo hold was reason enough for him to suspect that it was mainly used for shipments to and from The Apiary. 

The information he had on the base was virtually nonexistent, and what he did have was solely based on hearsay and rumors; like the Asset himself.

Though, as the transit station gave way to what Kidman would presumably label the lobby area, through Rumlow's quick recitation, he quickly came to understand why the base was called The Apiary.

The main building was indeed the largest, used primarily to house the five hundred scientists and staff members that lived and worked underground. 

Its interior design was a little archaic, as well as cast in sad, monochrome shades of gray and white that gave Kidman the impression of a penitentiary rather than a residential area for Hydra's best and brightest. It was safe to say that this building had been in operation since at least the early eighties/late seventies, and that the additional wings were added on some time later.

To the east laid a supplementary hive-like structure only accessible by a highly secured elevator system marked ** _R&D/V.I.R.G.I.L._ **

But to the west–where Rumlow and his team were delivering the pod–were a similar set of elevator banks simply labeled: ** _Eugenics_ **.

The ominous title did little to ease Kidman’s growing apprehension as they loaded the pod into the widened interior of the elevator–clearly made for things such as this–but with Rumlow’s escalating intrigue and the close proximity to which they were now standing, he had no choice but to tamp down on his nerves and pretend that he wasn’t about to hand over a national icon to a team of depraved scientists that would do God knows what to him once he was awake.

Judging by Rumlow’s greasy smile, Kidman wasn’t doing as good a job at that as he probably should.

“What’s Virgil?” He asked in an attempt to distract Rumlow from the thickening scent of Omega distress. 

Rather than answer, Rumlow gave an odd command. “Say hi to Kidman, V.”

_ “Hello, Corporal Kidman.” _Answered the disembodied voice of a male; artificial in origin, yet eerily modulated. Kidman nearly leapt out of his skin at the sound, clamping down on the frightened yelp that was perched under his chin.

“Virgil’s the A.I. that runs The Apiary, aren’t you, V?” Rumlow chuckled, dark eyes dancing with amusement.

_ “Among other things, Commander.” _Kidman swore he’d picked up on a hint of pride in the A.I.’s tone, which was so far from flat and monotonous that it may as well've had an actual soul attached to it. 

How ironic it is that Virgil acted as Dante’s guide on his journey through Hell. Almost too ironic for it to be a coincidence, since the latin insignia above the entrance to the main building came from one of his poems: ** _“Into the blind world we have now descended.” _ **

“Stark?” Kidman asked. He didn’t miss the way Rumlow stiffened at the name. “He sounds a little like Jarvis without the accent. The way he speaks is...very human.”

“Stark developed the program for SHIELD, but we had a better use for him.” was all he said on the matter. Apparently, Rumlow and Tony Stark didn’t get along, which wasn’t that much of a surprise, really. Stark has been on Hydra’s radar since before Obidiah was killed, which Rumlow lamented was ‘truly a tragedy’.

Rumlow really was the worst of the worst, but he couldn’t exactly say something like that to his face when he was trapped a fucking mile and a half underground with a Hydra kill squad breathing down his neck.

The elevator’s abrupt stop at the basement level B2 was what ultimately jarred Kidman out of his thoughts and back to the present, and when the doors slid open and he was met with the sight of a long, ominous, dimly lit hallway that housed several different surgical suites and containment rooms on either side, the Omega knew right then and there that he hadn’t actually met the worst of the worst yet.

But he would soon, and so would Cap.

The Pod was carried into the last room on the right, where a sturdy, stainless steel gurney and a tray of various menacing surgical tools were waiting for them. Well, waiting for Cap, most likely.

The gurney was fitted with magnetic restraints for the wrists, ankles, neck, and waist, making escape next to impossible, even if you were enhanced. 

After all, they were designed to detain the Asset first and foremost, and they’d done a hell of a job keeping him contained when he really didn’t want to be.

“V, wake the Asset, will ya?” Rumlow spoke his instructions to the ceiling while Mason, Larkin, and Rollins worked on opening the pod. Kidman, who was without orders, stood by the door and watched. “Make sure he’s prepped and ready to go when I need him later. This reunion’s half a century overdue, and I’d hate for him to miss it.”

_ “Certainly, Commander.” _

Kidman’s gaze slid from Rumlow’s venomous grin to the pod on the cement floor at the sharp sound of a hiss. It was a bit difficult to initially see much of anything when Mason and the other’s were standing in the way, but the moment they had him strapped to the steel gurney in the center of the otherwise barren room, Kidman could see the handsome, boyish features of Cap’s face, the cut of his muscles under all that red, white, and blue, and the still healing gash on his cheek that had begun to bleed fresh blood once his body temperature was warm enough to restore circulation.

He looked angelic. Ethereal in the way his long eyelashes brushed the pale skin of his cheeks as he slept. His body was a little more alert, yet still sluggish from the slow dethaw that would most likely affect him for several more hours.

It would be quite a while until he awakened enough to open his eyes, and even longer still until he could speak, but none of that was of their concern.

The mission was successful. Captain America was in Hydra’s custody in the most secure facility in the world–that the world didn’t even know existed–trapped underground with hundreds of enemies that all wanted the same thing: his undying loyalty to Hydra.

He was alone, friendless, and vulnerable.

And worse off, no one else knew that he was even alive.

Kidman’s heart clenched as those truths worked their way to the front of his brain, where they’d be even as he slept; haunting him for the part he played in all of this.

Whatever became of America’s golden boy would be because he’d allowed it to happen. That blood would be on his hands, and at this point, the Omega didn’t know if he could really live with that.

If Rumlow noticed the sullen scent in the air, he didn't say anything about it as the team was led from the room to report directly to Pierce on the success of their mission. It didn’t feel much like a victory for Kidman, but that was a problem for future-him to deal with.

Cap wasn’t his responsibility any longer.

As of now, he was the Asset’s.


	2. 1: Steve

It's a dreadful way to die; drowning in ice.

At first, the initial plunge into the shelf of ice and snow had generated enough force to render Steve mercifully unconscious when his head bounced off the yoke on the control panel.

However, that mercy was short to last.

The crash was violent and brutal, warping the metal frame of the plane and nearly ejecting Steve's limp body from the cockpit like a ragdoll once inertia caught up with him.

Hot blood erupted from the gash on his cheek, slowly oozing along the sharp cut of his jaw, disappearing under the collar of his tattered uniform where the fabric would greedily soak up every precious drop as sand does rain in the desert.

It's the combination of sticky heat rolling down his neck and the frigid water climbing up his legs that brought him back to awareness, and all at once, Steve's recurring dreams of becoming entombed in a chrysalis of ice became something horrifyingly tangible. A premonition rather than his subconscious fear of the cold that's plagued him since his days as a small child, when the chill could so easily seep into his bones and steal his breath in more ways than one.

These visions first began when Steve was sixteen, half-delirious with fever from his second bout of pneumonia that winter, and he’d thought them to be true, then, listening to Bucky’s quiet sniffling while Father Richards read him his last rights; his mother, Sarah, weeping in the background for her lost child.

That night, in the dying light of Steve's bedroom, Steve and Bucky made each other a promise: that if one should die, the other would keep watch until the day they were finally reunited in death. 

"Keep the light on for me, Buck," Steve had said, clutching his beloved's hand close to his frail, bird-like chest. "So I'll always know where to find you when I go."

Bucky could only nod his acquiescence, far too choked up to trust that his broken voice would say what he needed to say. But Steve hadn’t died that day, or any other afterward, as fate would have it. The visions continued throughout his remaining years, reminding him that he still had a date with death he couldn’t dodge.

It’s only now, as the cockpit filled with water as sharp as a knife’s edge, that he realized the truth.

He was always meant to die this way. The cold was his reaper. It always has been, and nothing, not even Erskine’s miracle serum, would ever change that. 

He'd hoped, perhaps foolishly, that when the time came for him to leave this mortal coil, he'd do it peacefully, with Bucky's hand clasped in his; a candle flickering in the window to guide him back to his bonded as they'd vowed in years prior.

He'd panicked, as those understandably do in situations such as this, but as the water surged higher and his temperature dropped lower, panic gave way to confusion. Confusion to exhaustion. Exhaustion to peace. And finally, peace to death.

Steve’s death wasn’t as slow and drawn out as he’d assumed it’d be. In fact, it happened within a few minutes, once he'd inhaled that first lungful of water.

There was pain, of course. With water dipping into the range of -2°C, the sensation is similar to that of being burned alive, or perhaps impaled with thousands of red-hot knives if you’re hitting the surface from a high enough velocity. The pain is all-encompassing, wiping out any trace of coherent thought as agony took hold. Extreme cold became indistinguishable from searing heat as the nerve endings were overloaded and scorched; dying gradually along with the body. 

Muscles cramp and lock, becoming about as useless as planks of wood where movement was concerned, and once the convulsions finally stopped, the body succumbed to the icy clutches of death and a strange sort of serenity whites out the part of the brain still trying to function.

Death becomes as peaceful as slipping into a bath of warm milk, and there is no more pain or fear. No more grief for the loss of life; Steve or Bucky’s, for that matter.

His mind is blissfully quiet, consciousness slipping like sand through his fingers even as Steve’s lungs filled with ice. The Valkyrie sank into the ocean no less than five minutes after it crashed, and by then, Steve was already gone, off to join Bucky in the sweet embrace of death that had claimed him two weeks prior.

But something was wrong, Steve belatedly realized once the darkness had covered his eyes with frost.

Bucky wasn’t here. Not even his mother, whom he’d lost to tuberculosis in 38’, was here with him. He wasn’t even sure where _ ‘here’ _ was, now that he thought about it. Wasn’t death supposed be...brighter?–warmer, maybe?

Why was he still so fucking _ cold? _And why couldn’t he see anything, or even move so much as a finger, for that matter?

Steve attempted to swallow back the bile trying to slither its way up his gullet once the raw panic set in, but something unyielding–maybe metal from the twisted frame of the Valkyrie?– was wrapped around his throat, preventing him from doing much besides sputter and choke on it.

Vomit slipped from the corners of his mouth; open and gasping like a fish out of water, and it was then that he noticed that same unyielding pressure was also encasing his wrists and ankles, keeping him bound to the slab he’d mistakenly taken for the pilot’s chair.

But even if his limbs were free, he doubted he would be able to move them much at all.

The ache in his body was everywhere; a sharp thrumming that coincided with the beating of his heart. A rapidly accelerating cadence of distress and terror that tightened his already compromised lungs to the point where breathing was almost impossible to do without wheezing or choking. 

His head throbbed like his brain was attempting to burst from the confines of his skull, his joints were on fire, muscles stiff and heavy like stones. His body was most likely battered to hell, worse than anything he'd experienced so far in his short existence. Though to Steve, pain was an old friend. 

Steve was almost certain he’d just had the shit beat out of him with a steel baseball bat. Still, for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why that was the conclusion he’d come to since the last thing he’d remembered doing was…

Wait…why did he have a heartbeat?

He couldn’t if he was…

No.

_ No! _

_ It can’t be–Please, God, no! _

“B–kee” he gurgled, slurring the syllables of the name on his useless, swollen tongue. 

_ God fucking damn it! _

Steve was supposed to be fucking _ dead, _ buried under the sea with the carcass of the Valkyrie he’d purposely crashed into the goddamn Arctic!

He was supposed to be with Bucky, forever at peace with his bonded in the bliss of the afterlife. 

Though his demise was accidental, Bucky went first to prepare the way, and Steve, in his grief, decided to follow after him, just like he’d always done when they were kids. But Steve doesn’t remember finding Bucky in the darkness like he'd promised to do. There was no light to guide him. He never felt the warmth of his presence when life slipped from his fingers just as easily as Bucky had on the train.

He doesn’t remember anything but cold and pain, grief, panic, despair–all things that death should have erased, right?

Unless…

Suddenly, two conclusions formed in the back of his aching mind, each more disturbing than the last.

Either he’d died and gone to Hell, or–and this was an even worse fate than eternal damnation–Steve was somehow still alive, trapped forever in the belly of the plane he’d intentionally downed.

He couldn't see. Couldn't move a muscle. Couldn't call out for help–though, he doubted anyone would hear him if he did. 

In its brilliance, the serum not only cured Steve of his mile-long list of ailments. It also cured him of death.

Quite frankly, It was a miracle the Alpha was still alive after something like that. But to Steve, who saw firsthand what the wonder of science had brought the world, there was nothing more horrifying than a miracle.

After he was given the serum, Steve's Alpha traits had finally emerged from their dormant state, when his body was far too weak and frail to present as anything conclusive.

His scent had morphed from something mildly smokey to a robust aroma both bitter and woodsy; like coffee beans roasted over a campfire. 

Bucky–who'd presented as an Omega at the age of thirteen, whose own scent was a decadent blend of dark chocolate and cinnamon–could hardly keep his hands off of Steve once his nose met the crook of Steve's neck the first time they'd encountered in the European Theatre.

They'd always just assumed that Steve was a Beta, which was fine, really. Bucky didn't need an Alpha to feel complete or anything like that. But things rapidly changed for them after the serum. Their romance was headier. Instinctual, like magnets drawn to each other, compelled to join themselves together for all time.

Yet despite their attraction to one another, Steve and Bucky were never actually mated. 

By the time the opportunity had presented itself, Bucky had been dead in the Alps for over two weeks and Steve was frozen somewhere in the Arctic.

Time, it appeared, was not on their side.

Nothing was.

Steve’s spiral downward into the past–whether recent or distant was yet to be seen–abruptly ceased at the sound of an unfamiliar voice echoing some undeterminable distance away from him. 

“I want continuous monitoring on our guest, Virgil.” Said the voice, closer now. Steve’s lips curled up in as much of a snarl as he could muster at this point, which wasn’t much, all things considered. “We can’t afford to make the same mistakes the Soviets did.”

Steve could tell it was another Alpha before he was even able to pick up on the stranger’s scent: a deep and earthy sort of inflection, like rainwater on steel. Steve’s hackles raised in response to it, unwelcome to another Alpha’s presence in his vulnerable state.

_ “Understood, Mr. Secretary.” _ Answered another, whose voice was directly above him, nearly startling Steve half to death. _ “Shall I fetch Commander Rumlow and Corporal Kidman, Sir?” _

“Not just yet. Have them on standby until Dr. Fletcher is finished with the Asset.”

_ “Yes, Sir.” _

There was a lot there for Steve to unpack, most of which he didn’t understand. What he does know, however, is that this Alpha is older–judging by the sound of his voice–and holds a position of power, as well as some substantial influence and wealth, most likely. 

There were two others with military ranking involved, although the title of Commander wasn’t something he was intimately familiar with. Perhaps this Rumlow was a mercenary of sorts? The fact that they were referring to one of the others as The Asset was disconcerting as well, and Steve wasn’t sure what to make of it. Whoever it was though, they didn’t appear to be in stable condition; at least to the point of requiring the services of this Dr. Fletcher.

So, based on these loose scraps of information, Steve quickly came to yet another assumption: He’s not in the carcass of the Valkyrie any longer. That much was apparent. 

Someone must have found him and brought him here; to this...military base, or something of the like. Though, where and when he actually was, he couldn’t say for sure, but the S.S.R must have been searching the area with a fine-tooth comb from the moment Peggy lost contact with him, otherwise he probably _ wouldn’t _ be alive right now.

Steve kept his breathing as deep and even as he could possibly manage, trying to scrounge for more information before he revealed that he was actually conscious. He needed to have a plan if things went sideways, and the only way he could adequately do that is if he had all the pieces to the puzzle. 

It’s what Bucky would have done, anyway.

Discovering the five Ws–as Bucky called them, even though there was definitely an H in there too–the where, what, how, when, and why were crucial to formulating that plan. If he had at least three out of five, he might have a fighting chance. But Steve didn’t have the answers to any of those questions.

He didn’t know where he was, what year it was, how long he’d been here, who even had him, or why they had him in the first place. All he had to go on were two martial rankings, a moniker, and a title.

So, basically nothing.

The sound of dress shoes on cement echoed within the space Steve was occupying, but he couldn't hear much beyond that. His head was still stuffed with thick cotton, making the act of stringing together coherent thoughts incredibly difficult.

He attempted to crack his left eye open to take a peek around, but it was as if his eyelids were weighed down by sandbags, unwilling to move despite Steve's vehemence.

Just then, a set of cold, dry hands were on him, one gripping his jaw while the other pried open an eyelid with deft fingers; first the left, then the right.

Steve was unable to contain the pained groan that burst from his chest as the overhead lights temporarily blinded him; effectively silhouetting the figure looming over his supine form. It was too much too soon for Steve's brittle nerve endings to process, and the subsequent light that was shined directly into his eyes all but sucked the breath from his burning lungs.

"Vitals?" Asked the Alpha. 

_ "Stable, Sir. Although, I am detecting elevated stress levels." _ Answered the odd voice that appeared to be coming directly from the damn ceiling. Steve couldn't quite place what it was about the voice that seemed off to him, just that it did. It's almost...artificial? He speculates. It's hard to say for sure. Steve's never encountered something like it before.

"That's to be expected. You've endured quite a lot, haven't you?" That's the Alpha talking again, but as Steve's eyes were finally able to open a smidge, he realized that the Alpha was speaking to him and not to the unseen person in the ceiling.

"...Wwwhh?" Steve couldn't respond to his question with anything other than broken syllables and groans, but the Alpha was able to decipher it fairly easily. 

"It took us quite a while to find you, Captain. A lot longer than we'd anticipated."

_ How long? _ – _ what the fuck happened to me?! _ Steve wanted to ask, but his throat was far too swollen to form the inquiry. 

He blinked instead; slowly to show that he was still listening. His lashes were heavy with ice crystals, falling into his sluggishly refocusing eyes like snow. 

_ "They were frozen shut," _ his mind supplied, and Steve's stomach turned as a new-found sense of horror zipped up his spine like a bolt of lightning. 

"I know you must be confused, Captain," the Alpha attempted to soothe, but the smile that stretched his thin lips was all wrong; shark-like and predatory as he gazed down at Steve almost reverently. "Answers will come in due time, I assure you. Just know that you're exactly where you need to be, my boy. You're in very capable hands, don't you worry."

The reassurance the Alpha tried to give was less than comforting, and Steve's attempt to squirm under his gaze was unfortunately not lost on him. He felt like an insect pinned to a board, open for dissection at the hands of this stranger. 

What exactly did he want from Steve?

The answer, disturbing as it was, came to the front of his mind the second he'd asked himself the question.

_ What else could he want? He wants the serum. _

_ "Elevated heart rate detected." _ The strange voice in the ceiling chirped. The Alpha's smile only widened.

Just then, Steve's enhanced hearing could faintly detect the sound of a shrill, yet muffled scream. It occurred to him then that he thought it sounded a bit familiar, like he'd heard it once before but his mind was concealing how or why he had in the first place.

His eyes widened at the scent of Omega distress, nostrils flaring as the distinct notes of cold-sweat, piss, and blood flooded his senses, along with the sweeter bits of their natural scent that hid underneath the sour essence of fear.

The Alpha smelled it too apparently, but waved a dismissive hand at him as he stepped away from where Steve was lying.

"Always so dramatic." He mumbled under his breath with an air of disdain, like he was speaking about a disobedient child throwing a tantrum.

"Virgil, make sure they clean him up _ before _ he's brought in for briefing." He sighed, turning his back to Steve to fiddle with something on the metal tray next to his hip. 

_ "As you wish, Sir." _ The voice–Virgil–responded.

With his back blocking out some of the overhead lighting, Steve was able to discern a few new things about this Alpha. He was nicely dressed in a well-fitting charcoal suit; accented with a cobalt blue tie that matched the exact shade of his irises. Steve was correct in his previous assumptions; the Alpha was indeed older, with fine lines and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His hair was reddish blond, neatly coiffed in a style reminiscent of Steve’s own. 

In fact, they share quite a few traits that were possibly more pronounced in this Alpha’s youth; like the square jaw, broad shoulders, and trim waist. Something inside of Steve made the hypothesis that they may have been able to pass for brothers if they were the same age.

Something about that didn’t sit right in Steve’s gut, but then again, nothing about this situation did.

His eyes were quick to take in the interior of the room he was currently occupying, but his blurry vision made picking out any details of note difficult from far distances. From what he could see, he was lying on a metal slab of some sort, in a sterile, bright white room that reminded Steve of a hospital. There were square pictures that moved like the images from a flicker show, each one displaying something different where they sat on the desk nearby. Some had numbers that changed when Steve’s heart quickened, and others had select images of the human anatomy on them. 

The ever-growing paranoia in Steve’s gut told him they were his, which only made the numbers in the picture box change yet again. 

This was confirmed when Virgil dutifully alerted the Alpha in the rise of Steve’s stress levels; heart rate, blood pressure, and respirations all rising in response.

“Who’re you?” Steve slurred, lifting his head as much as he could to look down the length of his body. Just as he’d suspected, metal cuffs had bound him to the slab under him; wrist, ankles, waist, and neck held tight in an icy grip. “Where’m I?”

“My name is Alexander Pierce, Captain.” the Alpha simply said, turning his head to the side to lock eyes with Steve. He was holding a syringe in his hand, pushing down on the plunger with his thumb to expel the air from the needle. Steve swallowed thickly. “I have to say, It’s an honor to finally meet you. My father served in the 101st, you know. I grew up hearing tales of Captain America and his Howling Commandos, thwarting the Nazis and Hydra alike with their valor and bravery.”

Steve’s blood ran cold as Pierce turned back to face him, jabbing that needle into the artery in his neck. 

“Don’t worry, my boy. It’s just a little sedative to help you relax.” Pierce soothed, withdrawing the needle and setting it back down on the tray. “Can’t have you working yourself up too much, now can we?”

Warmth flooded his head almost immediately, thoughts like bees scattered in the wind; sharp, stinging, angry.

He was still trying to wrap his mind around what Pierce had said. His father was assigned to the 101st, and he admitted to hearing tales of Steve and the Commandos when he was a boy. 

Pierce was most likely in his late fifties, early sixties. Unless he was lying–which didn’t seem likely–-that would mean that half a century had passed since Steve crashed the Valkyrie. Or at least since the war began if Pierce was already born when the draft was issued.

Steve’s stomach lurched at the revelation, his mind rejecting it like a foreign body. Cold sweat began to cover his brow, seeping into the already water-logged fabric of his suit. He wanted to scream, cry, rip this room apart and claw that cloyingly sweet grin right off of Pierce’s face. But he couldn’t move. Could hardly think or breathe with whatever Pierce shot into his body fogging up his head.

His vision swam as his lungs heaved, black spots obscuring his vision like an eclipse.

“It’s funny how things work out.” Pierce continued, turning his gaze on the three additional figures that entered the room just then: two Omegas and another Alpha, if Steve’s senses could still be trusted. “You were hailed as a hero, Captain. A symbol of freedom and justice to the nation; the entire world, even. We have a similar goal in mind, you and I.”

Steve didn’t like where this was going. More so due to the fact that he couldn’t do a damn thing to save himself from whatever this was.

“You died to give America and her allies the freedom they wanted. I am here to give the world the freedom it deserves, and you, my boy, will be the shield that protects that freedom from those that seek to destroy it.” Pierce said, gesturing to the dark, shadowy figure standing at attention to his left. The shadow obediently moved to Pierce’s side at the snap of his fingers, dark, wet hair stringing in his face. “And he,” Pierce beamed, eyes on the gaunt-looking figure Steve’s swimming vision couldn’t quite make out. “He will be the sword Hydra uses to take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a comment if you liked the chapter❤ thank you for reading!


	3. 2: Bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments, and as always mind the tags❤

The room was shockingly cold, even more so due to his current state of undress. His pale skin was still dripping wet from the impromptu shower Rumlow forced him into after the Chair had fried his brain half to death, and it was Pierce's suggestion to leave him barefoot, dressed only in a pair of black BDUs bogged down with water and cold sweat from cryo.

What purpose that served from a tactical standpoint was unclear to him, but he knew better than to challenge the will of Hydra.

They had what they'd been after from the beginning, and that's all that mattered.

The Asset looked down on the helpless Alpha strapped to the steel table before him, face carefully expressionless and neutral in the presence of his handlers. He knew better than to react to the blatant cruelty they dished out on a regular basis, mostly because any objection he offered would be immediately met with a cattle prod to the belly, and he'd rather not incite Rumlow's wrath if he could avoid it, especially over something like this.

The Alpha was merciless in the things he did to correct the Asset, and he sometimes tried to overlook the thick scent of satisfaction and arousal when Rumlow took to beating him bloody, but the hard bulge at the Alpha's groin and the way he smiled when his baton connected with the Asset's bare flesh was more than enough to confirm Rumlow's true intent when it came to delivering punishment.

Rumlow did it because he wanted to, not because he was merely charged to do so.

The smaller handler– the lamb among the wolves–didn't appear to follow Rumlow's enthusiasm for obedience. Kidman–as he was told the Omega was named–was oddly reserved and quiet, taking it all in at his own pace rather than gorge himself on depravity as Rumlow and the others often did.

He didn't have the stomach for it, he thought upon first meeting him when the Asset was still woozy with forced sleep but still expected to function as if he were not. 

In those few moments between reanimation and cognitive recalibration, the Asset scrutinized the smell in the air. There was something different there–beyond Kidman's sour notes of distress and Rumlow's potent pleasure at the prospect of causing pain–that he thought he'd sensed before; an essence of frost and smoke and something else that he couldn't name, but sometimes Pierce's breath would smell a little like it, only the scent was sullied and sour with bacteria from his mouth.

What was it called, again?–the answer he's searching for is right there on the tip of his tongue, sharp and bitter and a little muddy, but what–

> _ –"I'm tellin' you, Dum Dum, the shit they're passin' for a cup of Joe around here is exactly that. Shit." _
> 
> _ "Christ. He complain this much back home, Ste–?" _

The Asset stilled, reaching out for the voices reverberating inside of his skull much like he always did when they came to him unbidden, whispering secrets in his ear, but it's like trying to catch smoke in the wind; here for a moment and gone the next.

The scent lit a strange fire in his belly; scratching at the inside of his ribs and nipping at his strained heart as he was dragged from his icy pod to the Chair where his dreams came to die.

He foolishly asked Rumlow what the foreign scent was as the manacles locked his limbs in place and the technician pressed buttons on the monitor adjacent to him. The Alpha had answered him with the back of his hand, sneering between gritted teeth that it wasn't his business to know.

The Asset had left it at that, sucking the blood from his freshly split lip as he often did when Rumlow's fists met his face. The sharp taste of iron was somehow grounding to him, gathering up those loose ends and drawing them tight like the laces of a boot.

Blood was familiar to him no matter how tattered his person was, and the bitter smell reminded him of golden hair and blue eyes flecked with green, of split knuckles and a broken nose, soft murmurs of reprimands wrapped in devotion. 

It was also tied to the scent of Rumlow, who was the very essence of carnage, and of Pierce, who was blond-haired and blue-eyed, who often spoke to the Asset as one would an ignorant child who didn't know any better.

He believed he remembered Pierce, from before, as some of his deeper memories were more difficult to pluck from his skull than others. Blond hair and blue eyes would haunt him in his unnatural sleep, when he wasn't supposed to dream in the ice but did so anyway. The image of the golden Alpha was always blurred and warped from his frequent trips to the Chair, but Pierce looked enough like him that he never stopped to question if Pierce really was the Alpha from his dreams he alleged he was.

There was no green in the blue of Pierce's eyes, and his scent didn't match the face it belonged to. It should be warmer, he thought. His golden Alpha should smell like fire and earth.

When he spoke, the voice that filled the Asset's ears was deep, but the inflection was all wrong. Pierce had no discernible accent, and the kindness he offered usually concealed a blade or two to wound him if the Alpha felt it was warranted.

The thing is, he's heard his golden Alpha speak before, in the cold of a Soviet bunker out in the middle of Siberia.

_ "Leave the light on for me," _ He'd hear in the back of his mind, and flashes of light would accompany that deep voice echoing across the distance between them, silhouetting the broad-shouldered figure repeating the same hypnotic chanting of Russian words that left him in a daze.

_ Longing, _ they'd say, and the light flashed staccato like the breath in his lungs.

_ Rusted–three flashes. _

_ Seventeen–two flashes. _

_ Daybreak–five flashes. _

_ Furnace–five flashes. _

_ Nine–seven flashes. _

_ Benign–a pause. _

_ Homecoming–three flashes. _

_ One–eight flashes. _

_ Freight car, _they'd finish, and the light would flash so quickly his eyes would roll into the back of his head.

It was a pattern he'd vaguely recognized: _ Three-two-five-five-seven-zero-three-eight, _ interwoven with the words that bored out his skull and left him empty. Then, the dream would begin, and the voices in his mind would quiet. 

From then on, there was only the mission and nothing else.

The Asset never knew what the request meant or what significance keeping the light on had to his past self, only that it did. Like an oath he'd yet fulfilled, sinking claws into his brain in an attempt to keep him from where the words his Soviet handlers would inevitably take him.

His Alpha's voice was an anchor in the restless sea of his mind. Wipe after wipe it remained, hidden in a darkened corner of his soul that Hydra had yet to discover and scrape out of him like cancer, and it remained even now, after everything he's endured.

Pierce had no use for the words his Soviet predecessors utilized to keep the Asset in line. His presence was more than enough to incite loyalty and obedience in the broken soldier, and so they stopped using them after his ownership was transferred in 91', marveling at how well Pierce could control this wild animal they normally kept locked in chains.

Honestly, the Asset doesn't know why Pierce has him so firmly under his thumb, just that his face incites some emotions in him that demand unyielding fidelity. But now that Pierce has significantly aged, that fidelity has started to wane.

He doesn't resemble the Alpha from his dreams any longer, and the differences he found each time they met again began to sow the seeds of doubt in the Asset that couldn't easily be dismissed, despite his best efforts.

It's then, as he stood before this golden-haired Alpha, taking in every microscopic detail in his face, that the Asset understood why that was. 

This man is the Alpha from his dreams, the one that whispered things he didn't understand into his frozen ear to keep the Asset bound to him when Hydra tried like hell to tear him away.

_ He knows him, _ somehow.

He knows him intimately like he knows there's blood in his veins and marrow in his bones. He would know him by touch, by sound, by smell; he thought. But it's true, the Alpha's scent was calling out to him like a long lost friend, pleading with him to come back home. 

And that's what this felt like to him, standing so close to this specter that's haunted him for as long as he can remember: a _ homecoming. _

This is the man he's been waiting for all his life.

Of course, he doesn't give voice to these thoughts. If anything, the Asset violently pushed them away, forbade himself to ever think about what his mind was desperately trying to say. It was better for both of them if he did so, even though it felt similar to denying the beating of his own heart.

He did, however, allow himself to stare, even lean down to get a closer look (and without a hint of remorse, a huge lungful of that wonderful scent that's tying his heart up in a knot) at the Alpha on the table.

The Alpha shrank back as much as he could when the Asset advanced, the sour tinge of distress and anger leaking into the air around them, marring the delectable notes of fire and earth with the acidity of fear. Which was understandable, he thought. The Asset hadn't seen his own reflection in as long as he could remember, but he surmised that he must be monstrous to behold just from the look the Alpha is giving him; all wide-eyed and frightened, like a cornered animal staring down a predator.

The Asset said nothing to soothe him. It was not his place to do so. Although, his fingers itched to touch the pale skin of the Alpha's forehead, smooth out the wrinkle between his brows with the pad of his thumb. 

He wondered how the Alpha's skin would feel against his own, if it would be as soft as he believed it would be– 

"How're we lookin', V?" Rumlow abruptly asked the voice in the ceiling, jarring him from his thoughts. The Asset stiffened at the sound of his voice, once again standing to attention beside Pierce as he knew he was required. "He ready for Ol' Sparky, yet?"

_ "Negative, Commander." _ Virgil crisply responded. Rumlow's face fell in bitter dissatisfaction. That wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. _ "The Captain is not stable enough to withstand the high voltage without the risk of permanent cerebral damage." _

The Asset bristled. _ Ol' Sparky _ was Rumlow's name for the Chair. Referring to it in those terms never brought the Asset much comfort, especially when he told the Asset he was going to _ 'ride the lighting' _ to set him straight when he'd done something wrong. Rumlow liked to tease and torment the Asset in any way he could, particularly when it came to the Chair and what it did. Rumlow knew the Asset was petrified of it; of worn leather saturated in the stale scent of his own urine, with claw marks in the padded armrests where his fingers dug in against his will.

The Alpha would soon be subjected to this as well, and an emotion he'd never experienced before spread like fingers in his chest, gripping his heart so tightly he feared it would burst from the pressure.

Was it concern?–or perhaps it was sympathy for what they'd do to this beautiful creature that stole his breath like a hard punch to the gut.

A cursory sniff next to his ear was all the warning he received before the reprimand came. Rumlow could smell it, whatever it was, and the Asset braced himself for the snap of his baton against bare flesh that would surely follow. And sure enough–

"Fuckin' Omegas," Rumlow spat, forcing a pained grunt from the Asset–and strangely enough, the Captain– when Rumlow's baton met the back of his neck with a sickening _ crack _ . "What, you gettin' soft on him already, you little bitch? When you're not pissing yourself in the Chair you're mooning over Alpha dick like the _ whore _ you are. That wet cunt between your legs makes you _ weak! _ Fucking pathetic–"

"Brock, that's enough." Pierce held up his hand, fixing Rumlow with a weary stare that relayed how much he hated Rumlow's crass choice of language. It was an act, of course. Normally Pierce didn't comment on how Rumlow spoke to the Asset. This was all for show, perhaps for the Captain's sake, or maybe even Kidman's. "Your feelings on the matter are irrelevant. We should be encouraging them to bond as brothers in arms, don't you agree? The Captain is, after all, in his charge. How do you expect them to work together in the field if they don't respect each other, hm?"

"Yes, Sir," was all Rumlow said to that, biting out the words through clenched teeth. His hand, however, came up to roughly grab the Asset by the scruff of his neck, giving him a good shake as he hissed in his ear, "You've got your orders, Soldier. Get to it."

The Asset said nothing. He seldom did anyway. In the hierarchy of Hydra, the Asset, being that he was an Omega, held the same ranking as a dog begging for scraps at the dinner table. He was a pet on good days and a _ thing _ on all the others. He's an attack dog. A weapon. His opinions held no weight, and voicing them was synonymous with raising a hand to his owners.

Rumlow liked him quiet or screaming, depending on his mood, and Pierce would prefer him to be mute at all times when he's not barking out _ yes sirs _ or _ hail Hydras. _ That's just how it was for him. 

He wondered if it would be the same for Kidman since he was an Omega as well and Hydra didn't particularly care too much how their designation was treated.

The Asset saw how Rumlow looked at him. It was only a matter of time before the kid was covered in his own blood.

So without comment or further prompting, the Asset picked up the shears from the metal tray and began to cut the wet uniform from the Captain's body, just as Rumlow had instructed during prep.

Rumlow stayed where he was, his hand squeezing the back of the Asset's neck in warning to deter him from trying anything stupid. Not that he ever would. It was forbidden to damage Hydra's property, and that included harming himself like he'd done on several occasions in the past. He still has the scars on his forearm where he tried to slice open his brachial artery with a pen someone had mistakenly left in his cell.

Mistakes like that only happen once, he realized, when he was ordered to shoot the tech who'd done it right between the eyes.

"What're you doing?" The Captain slurred, damn near drooling from the drugs in his system. "W-wait. Stop, _ please don't–" _

The Alpha attempted to squirm against the table as the shears sliced up the material covering his right thigh, but the sedative Pierce administered made movement especially difficult during moments of emotional distress.

He would know how that felt intimately. These drugs were all tested and perfected on him, after all.

"I'm surprised you don't recognize him, Captain," Pierce said, his tone patronizing and a bit surprised. The Alpha went still as the Asset continued to slice the clothing from his body, unfocused eyes seeking out his captor. "I hear you two were close once, yes?" 

That caught the Asset's attention as well, though he didn't show it.

The Captain visibly swallowed as Pierce ran a hand down the side of the Asset's stubbled cheek, silently shooing Rumlow's touch from his body with a firm grip to the Omega's dimpled chin, forcing the two to look at each other a bit closer. 

_ "Look, _ Captain." Pierce urged, saccharine sweet. "See how far he's fallen, for you are soon to follow."

The Asset was practically hovering on top of the Alpha, hands completely still and shears abandoned at the Captain's side. The Asset had effectively peeled away the layers of the Captain's uniform, slicing open the fabric from ankles to wrists and leaving him bare to the frigid air in the room.

All at once, the Alpha's scent hit him like a brick to the face: burning wood and bitter–what was it?–oh, _ coffee!– _ that's the word he was looking for–warm and comforting and _ oh _ so intoxicating.

He wanted to bury his nose in the Captain's neck, breathe him in and wrap himself in it like a warm blanket on a cold winter's night. He _ knows _ this scent. Hadn't realized he'd forgotten it until it was right in front of him. 

The Asset took a measured sniff and the Alpha scented him in return, although a bit more reluctantly. His blue eyes narrowed as he took in the Asset's features; his long, dark hair stringing in his face, full lips downturned in a natural pout, and those round, livid eyes, deadened from years of trauma yet somehow still _ alive. _ Clarity flashed in his eyes like a bolt of lightning, sweeping away the fog from the sedative with a gust of air he'd forced from his lungs. 

His pupils dilated, then. Disbelief and pain tainted his expression, grief tinging his scent as his pale lips parted.

"Bucky?" He rasped, choking on his own tongue. 

The Asset cocked his head in response, reminiscent of a dog trying to understand its master. Hot panic rushed through his veins at the sound of that name, both foreign and familiar, but he didn't know who that person actually was or why his brain suddenly felt like it was engulfed in fire.

It's true that he'd recognized it, but its origin remains shrouded in mystery, making his head throb the longer he chased after it.

Still, he was curious, and curiosity was always a dangerous thing to entertain for someone like him.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" The Asset questioned without thinking, brow creased in agonizing confusion. Pierce's grip on his chin left the moment he chose to open his mouth, and the Asset braced himself for another crushing blow for speaking out of turn. Yet surprisingly, none came.

The Captain, however, made a sound that was a cross between anguish and hopelessness, like he'd been the one to receive Rumlow's baton to the gut instead of the Asset.

_ "Bucky," _ he tried again, breath hitching as a sob escaped his throat. "What'd you? 'S me! It's Ste–"

This time Rumlow did hit him, swiftly bringing his baton down on the Captain's knee hard enough to make him howl. The Asset yelped, stumbling back as if he'd been burned and clutching his bare chest as anguish ripped through his core.

"So, you do recognize him." Pierce smiled wickedly, stepping forward to card his finger through the Asset's sweaty locks, all the while keeping eye contact with the Captain. "Good. That's very good. We hoped you would, Captain. Not that there was really any doubt."

He gave the Asset a considering glance from where he was nearly doubled over next to the table. His grin widened, hand falling back down to his side.

"Seems like the two of you were a lot closer than history recalls. Though, it's a pity he doesn't remember you. Two thousand volts and seven amps to the brain'll do that, I suppose."

Rumlow met Pierce's gaze with a question burning in his eyes. Pierce nodded once and Rumlow turned the baton back on the Asset, cracking it across the underside his jaw.

Stars exploded behind the Asset's eyes, pain spreading up his neck to burrow into his skull. But he remained upright despite how hard Rumlow had hit him, and it was then, when the ringing in his ears had dulled enough for him to hear, that he noticed the deep, predatory, bone-chilling snarl echoing around the room.

The Asset peeked through the curtain of his long hair, perhaps thinking that the sound was coming from Rumlow or perhaps even Pierce, but he was dead wrong.

His eyes fell on the Captain, writhing against his adamantium bindings with a look on his face that was equal parts pain and white-hot rage. 

"Don't you fucking touch him!" The Alpha snapped, baring his teeth at Rumlow in warning. The Asset felt a shiver race down his spine, yet he remained silent and motionless. He hadn't been told he could move, and now wasn't the time for him to push the envelope.

"What, you mean like this?" Rumlow grinned, jabbing the end of the baton straight into the Asset's stomach. Fifty thousand volts shot through his body like a bullet, dropping him down to his knees when his muscles seized up.

The Captain hadn't fared any better by the sound of it, but he was still fighting like hell to escape his bonds and tear Rumlow to pieces with just his teeth and nails, shouting profanities and threats alike that the Asset felt vaguely comforted by.

The image of the Captain with Rumlow's blood staining his teeth would have made the Asset smile if he weren't in such excruciating pain.

"Look at that, Sir," Rumlow said with a chuckle, his sickening smile nearly splitting his face in half. "Sympathy pains."

Rumlow struck the Asset for the third time, laughing along with Pierce as the baton cracked across his face with enough force to whip his head to the side.

"Leave him alone, you fucking bastard!" The Captain snarled, jerking weakly against the restraints. Tears were streaming down the sides of his face while blood dripped off the tip of the Asset's nose, collecting in little puddles between his knees. "I'll kill you for this!"

Rumlow waved a dismissive hand at him, unphased in the least by the Captain's tantrum. "Yeah, sure you will, Cap." 

The Asset spat blood on the concrete floor next to Kidman's boots, shivering with the urge to fight back and protect himself, even though he wouldn't ever dare raise a hand against Rumlow. He was a formidable weapon with more than two dozen assassinations under his belt and yet Rumlow had him so firmly under his heel that he could break every bone in the Asset's body and he still wouldn't make a move to hurt him.

"Are they bonded, Sir?" Kidman offered, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he assessed the situation. Rumlow looked a bit startled, like he hadn't realized the Omega was still in the room. Kidman swallowed, hesitating for a beat before continuing.

"The scar'll fade if a mated pair is separated for a long time, but it'll usually come back once they're reunited. It would explain why they're so attuned to each other."

"Oh, yeah?" Rumlow sneered. "You hidin' something from us, Omega?" 

The Alpha tangled his fingers into the Asset's hair and yanked his head to the side, examining the unmarred patch of flesh between neck and shoulder where a mating bite would be. "Should've known you were all over Cap's dick too back in the day, weren't ya? You filthy whore. Some things never change."

The Asset winced, unsure if Rumlow would find what he was looking for. He doesn't remember ever receiving a mating bite from anyone besides Rumlow, and thankfully, it didn't take. The only way that would be possible is if the Asset was already mated to someone else, but he just doesn't _ remember. _

To his surprise, there was nothing there. 

No bite. No scar. Nothing. And it was the same thing for the Captain. 

Rumlow released the Asset and stepped forward to grab at the Alpha's jaw. The Captain snapped his teeth at Rumlow's fingers like a hungry dog and received a backhand to the face for his effort. 

Rumlow turned the Captain's head from side to side, searching for the mark in his flesh that proved the bond was real, but just like the Asset, he found nothing. How and why the Captain and the Asset were so attuned to each other without a bond in place was a mystery, but Pierce didn't need the answer to those questions to be able to exploit it.

"V?" Rumlow inquired, puzzled. "What do you make of this?"

_ "My scans indicate that no mating bond is currently in place between the Captain and the Asset, Commander." _

"The fuck?" Rumlow grumbled, but Pierce didn't seem the least bit concerned.

"That's of no consequence, Brock." He said, confident. "Wouldn't want them getting _ too _ close, now would we?"

Rumlow shrugged. "What's it gonna take to stabilize him, V? We're kinda on a tight schedule here."

_ "Food, fluids, rest, and of course, time, Commander," _ Virgil answered.

Rumlow sneered, exhaling some of his frustration that would normally be directed at the Asset. "How. Long?" He repeated, irritated.

_ "By my calculations, the Captain should be stable in two to three days, Commander. At that time, you may proceed with cognitive recalibration and begin the indoctrination." _

The Captain stiffened, the scent of fear stinking up the room in a thick fog. He struggled, spitting out curses that had the Asset's hackles raised. 

"Good." Pierce nodded, snapping his fingers to get the Asset's attention. "Up."

The Asset stood, moving gracefully despite how battered Rumlow had left him. 

"Brock, prepare the containment cell, would you? Take the kid as well." 

Rumlow hesitated at the command dressed as a request, but snapped to a moment later, barking out a _ yes, sir, _ before grabbing Kidman by the shoulder and hauling him out of the room right along with him. 

The Asset steadied his breathing, turning his eyes on Pierce despite how vehemently the Captain was still struggling.

Pierce filled another syringe with a dark amber liquid, then jabbed the needle into the artery in the Captain's neck. 

It was seconds later that the Alpha finally fell silent, but Pierce wasn't concerned about him at the present moment. His attention was on the Asset, scrutinizing him with those icy eyes that left the Asset feeling more conflicted than he ever had before.

The Alpha brushed the hair from the Asset's face almost tenderly, dabbing at the gash along his cheekbone with a wet piece of gauze, cleaning it gently.

The Asset let him, despite how much his body wanted to recoil at the touch.

"I don't think I need to tell you what's at stake here, my boy." He murmured, wiping the blood from the Asset's chin. Despite the attention Pierce was giving him, the Asset's eyes kept straying to where the Captain slept, watching him intently.

Pierce frowned. "Do I?"

The Asset shook his head, shifting his attention back on his possessor. "No, sir." 

That brought a smile to the Alpha's face.

"The fate of the world rests in your hands. The balance between order and chaos is at a tipping point, and it's up to you to make sure that order is restored."

Pierce glanced down at the Captain, utterly still in his forced slumber. If it wasn't for the constant beeping of the heart monitor in his ear, the Asset would think he was dead, and that wasn't a thought he wanted to dwell on anytime soon.

"His loyalty is misplaced, my boy, and I'm counting on you to make sure he plays his part when we need him to."

The Asset swallowed back his unease, attempting to draw comfort in the familiarity of Pierce's earthy scent. But he found none. His heart raced, and he could tell that Pierce was picking up the fluctuations in his scent; the restlessness, the longing for something he didn't understand. He doesn't want to hurt the Captain, but he knew what he had to do to ensure the future Hydra has been striving for became reality.

He didn't have a choice in whether he participated or not, but the thought of letting Pierce down was a weight he wasn't yet ready to carry. 

"I won't let you down, Sir. " The Asset said, standing tall despite himself. "I promise."

Pierce smiled, patting him on the cheek like the obedient dog he was.

"Good. Make sure that you don't. You know what happens if you fail."

The Asset nodded, unwilling to let such a thing happen if he could help it. This was his purpose. His reason for living. He couldn't–no, _ wouldn't _ be the reason humanity fell into chaos.

The Captain would come to know his place within Hydra. The Asset would see to that personally.

"Hail Hydra," Pierce said, and the words felt like a brand on the Omega's skin. He didn't want to, but he knew what would happen if he rejected Hydra's pledge of loyalty.

"Hail Hydra." The Asset echoed obediently.

He could do this.

He _ would _ do this.


	4. 3. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. The chapter is notably shorter, which I also apologize for, but I'm honestly just happy I managed to get something out at all. Writer's block is a cruel mistress.

Steve groaned as consciousness swept back in like a tidal wave to rouse him from sleep, bright lights as incandescent as the sun itself assaulting his delicate eyes the moment he'd made the mistake of opening them again. His head hung forward heavily, chin pressed to his sternum and limp arms outstretched above him; secured to the wall by cuffs of unyielding steel wrapped around his wrists.

He'd been deposited on the cold, hard floor like a puppet with its strings cut, just left to sit and wait until its master wanted to play with it again. And how befitting an analogy that was, considering all he'd seen and heard.

It turned his blood to ice, thinking about what he was soon to become at the hands of Alexander Pierce. But Steve would rather die a thousand deaths than ever submit himself before Hydra like that, and if Pierce thought he'd go quietly and play the good soldier then he had another thing coming.

Steve blinked to steady his swimming vision, slowly and cautiously as if the strain from this simple motion would tear the thin membrane of his eyelids in two, and as ridiculous a notion as that was, it certainly felt as if his skin were paper-thin; his bones wrapped in a delicate layer of cellophane, the only shield he possessed to protect the vulnerable parts of himself from this new Hell he'd awoken to. 

Each movement he made, however slight it was, took monumental effort to complete, and it was as if his muscles had been hardened into stone; his limp body unwilling to shift despite his pathetic attempts to twist and tug at the metal that bound him to the wall.

And to make matters worse, he’d also been completely stripped of his uniform, the lingering chill that clung to his naked flesh causing him to shiver so violently Steve thought he'd shake himself right out of his skin. 

He was battered and bruised from the crash of the plane, skin bloodied and split from repeated blows dealt by the Commander's stun baton, and his mind was clouded by the melting ice encasing his spine and whatever it was Pierce had been injecting into his body to keep him docile, so stringing together a simple thought or even coordinating his muscles to move at all was virtually impossible to do in the half-dead state he was left here in.

But despite all of that, Steve was still alive.

He had survived the unthinkable and was now imprisoned in an unknown facility at the hands of an enemy both he and Bucky gave their lives to eradicate from the face of this earth. But regardless of the circumstances that should have seen him dead at the bottom of the ocean he'd drowned in, Steve was still horrifyingly, painfully, miserably alive.

And so was Bucky, for that matter.

It's the only thing his mind kept circling back to, despite the fact that he was in Hydra's custody, had no idea where he was or even what year it was, and knew full well of Pierce's plans to use Steve as the new fist of Hydra, alongside Bucky, who was now one of the very people he fought against in the war.

It was almost as if his mind couldn't process all of that verity at once, so it clung to the only things it could: Bucky is alive. Bucky is with Hydra. Bucky doesn't know him.

That, more than anything else, was more anguish than Steve's heart could bear.

Bucky, his beloved Omega, whom he'd known since he was a six-year-old boy in Brooklyn, held no recollection of him. It was as if their history together had been erased, and every moment in time that shaped Bucky into the man Steve knew him to be had been rewritten into something unrecognizable and wretched.

It made his heart die to think that their bond had suffered the same ill-fate as well, that he was truly alone in Hell without a soul that cared at all, let alone the only soul that mattered.

_ Jesus. _ The look on Bucky’s face–the lack of recognition, the glaze in his dead eyes, his gaunt features and waxy complexion–told Steve everything Bucky couldn’t or wouldn’t say about what they'd done to him.  _ Fuck, _ and the  _ smell  _ coming off of him now... 

Steve has never been this heartbroken before, seeing how utterly forsaken Bucky believed he was. Friendless and completely alone, just as Steve was now. And what’s worse, however unintentional, was that his own Alpha had been the one to leave`him to this fate.

Steve should have known, should have felt something in his spirit, should have caught the scent of his Omega and recognized it despite the putrid layers that covered it up. 

But he didn’t, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that the truth is laid bare before him: Steve had failed his Omega in every way an Alpha could, and it filled his chest with shame.

Of course, it wasn’t just the acrid stench of built-up filth that initially concealed Bucky’s scent from him, Steve realized, combing through his mind to try and understand why he didn’t immediately recognize his beloved when that scent is all but ingrained in his DNA. It was the sourness of fear so encompassing that Steve could still detect traces of stale urine and sweat on Bucky’s cold, wet skin. It was pain and anger, terror that changed each note of Bucky’s scent, piece by piece, until all Steve could hear echoing from Bucky’s body was:  ** _“HELP ME!”_ **

He could smell it even now; the potent stench of Omega distress. Though, upon further investigation, it was found to be obscuring two different scents: One cast in a bed of dying roses, the other dipped in bitter sugar—the smaller Omega whose name he never caught, and Bucky. 

_ His _ Bucky. 

Steve could smell it filtering in from under the door to his cell, clinging to his nose like cloying perfume, and once a few of his other senses came back to him a bit more reliably, he could also faintly hear the shuffling of boots on cement; the echoing sound getting louder the closer it came to his cell door. Steve’s hackles raised in response to it, his entire body going rigid and the primal instinct to defend himself taking over what was left of his functioning forebrain.

The Alpha sniffed at the air, pulling out sharp notes of iron and copper and recognizing its owner almost instantly–it’s the Alpha commander, Brock. The one that put his baton to Bucky like he was nothing more than a mongrel dog, smiling all the while as he beat him bloody in front of Steve. 

The wounded Alpha let out a low growl at the memory, the muscles in his neck and jaw tensing up to the point of pain as he clenched his teeth.

“V, initiate protocol B.325-1A,” the Commander barked his order to the voice in the ceiling, now standing just beyond the closed door to Steve's cell. His teeth bared instinctively, mouth watering at the mere thought of tearing into the Commander’s throat like he was some sort of rabid animal. God knows it would feel good to put a violent end to the man that raised a hand to Bucky, and even if it killed him in the end, Steve would make damn sure that Brock left his share of blood on the floor for what he’d done to his Omega. 

_ “Shock Collar Protocol engaged, Commander Rumlow,”  _ Virgil crisply replied,  _ “Do you wish to be notified for any infractions requiring disciplinary action?” _

“Nah. Just make a side note of it in his file and I’ll deal with it later if he fucks up,” Rumlow muttered. Then, to someone else, he spat, “You put one fucking toe out of line and we’ll have ourselves a repeat of France, you get me, Omega? And this time, I’ll turn the fucking cameras off and really have a go at you. Consequences be damned.” 

There’s the unmistakable whine of his baton charging, electricity crackling against the thick atmosphere, and then, just because he could, a muffled ‘ _ whap’ _ followed by a wounded groan so faint Steve would hardly hear it at all if he weren’t intently listening for it. But he knew from the sharp bloom of pain along his brow, spreading like fire down his cheek and prickling against his scalp, what Rumlow had done, and Steve was dead set of killing this man for it.

The red light above his door flashed green with a loud buzz and Steve’s head lifted just enough to see two figures dimly outlined from where they stood in the doorway: one Rumlow, the other Bucky. And there, standing just behind Rumlow’s shoulder, was the nameless Omega he’d seen once before, idly standing guard with his handgun clasped tightly in his hand; scared beyond what his expression was implying but unwilling to show any visible weakness in the presence of his Commander.

_ He looks out of place, _ Steve catches himself thinking when his gaze lingered on the Omega’s face, but his attention abruptly shifted back to the door when Rumlow gripped Bucky by the scruff of his neck and violently shoved him inside the cell with Steve, slamming the door closed behind him before Steve could even think about trying to lunge for him.

The light above the door flashed red as soon as the lock engaged, and then, for the first time since 1945, it was just the two of them, alone together, and something deep inside of Steve sighed with relief at the presence of his beloved. 

Steve strained to lift his head a little more, struggling against stiff and sore muscles and the lingering effect of sedatives in his blood. He managed, surprisingly, but once he got a better look at Bucky through eyes that weren’t obscured by drugs and pain, he almost wished he hadn’t.

“ _ Bucky _ –what have they done to you?” He weakly whimpered, taking in the blood smeared across Bucky’s bruised forehead, the split skin along his left eyebrow and the swollen eye just below it.

Steve grimaced at the frostbitten look Bucky was giving him from behind that curtain of long, unwashed hair. He’s hurt. Steve can clearly see that Rumlow beat the hell out of him beyond what he’d already witnessed in the white room, but seeing how broken Bucky was, taking in all that damage; the bruises, the blood, the split open skin and the acrid stench of fear that rolled off of Bucky’s stiff body in waves quickly brought out the hysteria he’d been trying to keep a lid on since he first woke up here.

“I-I saw you die,” was the only thing Steve could think to say in this moment, because how in the hell could Bucky survive something that would have easily reduced an ordinary person to nothing more than a crimson stain on the rocks? He watched Bucky fall to his death from a speeding train, heard his terrified screams when the battered railing finally snapped under his weight, felt his spirit tear itself it two when Bucky disappeared from his sight, landing somewhere among the jagged rocks and snow. Steve  _ felt _ his beloved die, so how is he still here?

At first, Bucky didn’t say anything. He barely even moved a muscle in response to Steve’s potent destress filling the space between them. He just stood there by the door, clutching something tightly in his mismatched hands, and it’s then, when the overhead lights reflected off the shiny surface of Bucky’s bicep, that he noticed Bucky’s left arm was completely encased in metal. With his torso now covered in all of that thick, black leather, Steve couldn’t see where the metal ended and Bucky’s flesh began, but from the way he leaned a little to the left, compensating from the increased weight of that– _ thing _ on his arm, Steve knew right then and there that it wasn’t just encasing Bucky’s arm. It replaced it completely.

The air rushed from his lungs in a wounded sound, throat tightening at the mere thought of Bucky suffering, weakly crying out for help that never came. He must have lost his arm in the fall, mangled it on the rocks when he hit the bottom of the ravine. 

Steve never went back to look for him, never even considered the fact that he might have survived. He just left him there, bleeding out in the snow, alone and scared and praying for someone to find him. To save him when Steve didn’t. But instead of receiving salvation, Bucky was given death, and it's entirely Steve's fault. 

“You’re weak,” Bucky mumbled, looking more unsure of himself the longer he occupied the same space as Steve, as if just being in the same room together was far too much for him to process. “Commander says you need to eat. So eat.”

The object Bucky’d been holding in his hands was then thrust out towards Steve, and he could vaguely see that it was a small metal bowl with a tan-colored liquid sloshing around inside of it. It spilled over the lip of the bowl, thinly coating Bucky’s metal fingers as it ran down the side and dripped onto the cement flooring.

“I– _ what _ ?” Steve whimpered, his anxiety intensifying with each passing second. “Bucky, it’s  _ me _ . It’s  _ Steve _ . What the hell are you doing here? Why are you with these people?! Why–"

_ "Quiet." _ Bucky snapped, and Steve didn't miss the way Bucky flinched when he said his name. Despite his attempt to appear formidable, the word didn't come out as harshly as he might have intended it to. Rather than leave his throat in a growl, Bucky's voice morphed into a low whine that had Steve's Alpha instincts on high alert. "No more talking."

Going against the impulse to soothe, Steve went silent. Bucky always said he was situationally tone-deaf, never quite knowing when it was time to back off and shut up, but the look on Bucky's face and the tremble in his voice told Steve that he shouldn't try to push Bucky any further, lest he break like fine china. 

When Steve made no further attempts to speak, Bucky warily stepped closer, scenting the air for any hint of aggression Steve might show him if he stepped within his reach. He found none.

He slowly lowered himself to the floor, kneeling at Steve’s side with the bowl tucked protectively in his hands, taking care not to spill another drop.

"Eat." He said, calmly, voice almost a whisper as he finally met Steve's gaze.

Against his better judgment, Steve parted his lips when Bucky pressed the lip of the bowl to his mouth, tilting it slightly to allow Steve to drink at his own pace. He didn't think it was poisoned, as that would defeat the purpose of what Hydra was after. They needed him alive and healthy–or, at least, as healthy as they allowed Bucky to be, which by the look and smell of him, wasn't saying a lot.

Salt coated his tongue from the first taste, but it wasn't overpowering or vile, as Steve thought it would be. It was a little metallic like it had been sitting in a tin can for a while, but it was smooth and  _ warm _ , and that was really all Steve could wrap his mind around at the moment. 

Liquid heat trailed down from Steve's mouth to his filling belly, where it spread like fingers into the veins of his freezing arms and legs. The Alpha shivered as warmth swept over his naked flesh, desperately sucking down more of the broth and sputtering slightly when his throat convulsed around the fluid, taking too much too soon. 

"Easy, " Bucky murmured, pulling back the bowl to let him breathe. "You'll make yourself sick, doing it like that."

Steve pursed his lips, swallowing around the lump in the throat that had nothing to do with him nearly inhaling broth into his lungs.

"Bucky, please," Steve whispered, eyes pleading, searching for any hint of recognition and finding none. "We need to get out of here. We can't–"

"No." Bucky's eyes turned hard, expression unyielding. But there's something vaguely defensive in the way he's looking at Steve, almost as if he's trying to protect him in the way he used to when they were younger. Steve's heart ached to hear such sentiment. "Don't fight them. Don't–" he sighed, eyes flicking up toward the ceiling, body tense. "Soon, none of this will even matter. Whoever you were is dead and buried, and out of the ashes, something new will arise. Don't fight this, Captain. Hydra will always win in the end."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any feedback is cherished beyond measure ❤


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